I'll be forever grateful to Douglas Trumbull for his special effects contributions to my favorite movie 2001: A Space Odyssey which I experienced as a teenager in 1968. Trumbull was a pioneer back in the 60s, and he remains on today's cutting edge. An amazing person.
I was five when I saw it and the impact it had on me was the reason it remains my favorite. I was lucky enough to see a showing of the film a few years ago in London with a live orchestra and choir. Would you believe people were walking out during the end credits and the orchestra was still playing? There’s no hope.
2001 looks so amazing because people actually cared about the art as well as the tech. If anyone is gonna pioneer more immersive tech, Trumbull seems the perfect candidate.
Beyond_the_Infinite I was 13. My brother and his college buddy took me with them downtown for the 1st showing. 3rd row center balcony. You needed to turn your head slightly to see all 3 screens. Blew me away. When we were exiting outside several hundred people waiting to get in the theater were asking... 'was the movie good' and I remember my brain trying to get back to reality and unable to even say ..."yes".
When watching the hobbit at 48 fps and 3d it was the first time that a movie looked "real" to me, instead of like sequential still images. But it came with a major draw back, the cinematic techniques made it super obvious it was shot as a sound stage and wasn't real. For instance, arranging the hobbits in a triangle to fill the frame made it look like they were standing in a triangle, instead of just filling my vision. cuts into close shots of some guy putting something in his pocket and back out wide were very disorienting because my eyes can't do that in real life. It felt real, like I was seeing the actors physically in front of me on a live stage, but the cinematic techniques betrayed the realism. A bunch of people complain and said the frame rate or 3d was to blame, but it wasn't. the problem was they were using techniques from sequential still-flat-image art in their use of live 3d art, and it doesn't translate. directors need an entire new language of cinematic techniques to make the realism of 48fps+ and 3d feel right to consumers. Maybe with inventions like apple vision pro and meta quest we'll get a new generation of directors developing content more suitable to this level of realism.
I was always impressed by the Showscan process. I saw Brainstorm on a 70mm print, and loved it, but I was still disappointed that it wasn't able to fulfill Trumbull's vision by showcasing his great technological improvement, as it was conceived as a film that really offered the opportunity. It could have been a really shocking _The Wizard of Oz_ kind of experience when the move went from conventional 35mm into Showscan. People would probably still be talking about it. Trumbull is an unsung Hollywood hero, definitely a cult figure, and I hope his Magic process goes somewhere. Considering that James Cameron's _Avatar_ was mostly animated, a spectacular movie like that could be a perfect showcase for such a technology. A lot of these big spectacular filmmakers are looking for a hook and a way to increase immersion. Well, here it is. I hope this Magi process actually gets used for a major motion picture. I'd go out and see it just for that. The only other major flaw in projection is the darkness of current 3D glasses. Watching a movie through what look like sunglasses lenses produces a dark, dull image. I sometimes regret seeing movies in 3D because of it, as I did with _The Incredibles 2_ , a film where a bright and colorful image was more important than a 3D one. At least projectors can now project a much brighter image to help compensate.
I loved Silent Running. Great story by a great artist. And more immersion and better quality are good. While you also get more crap, the masterpieces will be easier to watch years after their release, because it will still have decent quality as compared to the then current standards.
As a lifelong fan of large format, and attendee of multiple IMAX / Giant Screen Cinema Association events I've had the very great fortune and privilege to have seen pretty much every film capture / projection system yet invented. There is nothing, imo, that even comes close to how astounding Doug Trumbull's original 70mm SHOWSCAN was, and his MAGI system is. To this day I've never seen a better cinematic illusion than the 'projectionist-behind-the-screen' gag in the 1985 SHOWSCAN demo film NEW MAGIC. And UFOTOG, his demo for the MAGI 3D process, was so immersive I had to take my glasses off at least twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming, and that was just the 2k version. I completely agree with other comments here that story is king. Doug Trumbull also completely agrees with you. His medium is ready, waiting for anyone with a great script who's also brave and visionary enough to embrace the means to tell it in an unprecedented way.
How did I miss seeing this in 2015? And where is the Magi process now? I saw Trumbull present the Showscan process at the Motion Picture Seminar of the Northwest in the late seventies, and then pavilions at Expo '86 in Vancouver that featured Showscan films. The next step in cinema IMO is to switch from projection to OLED active screens. That will add high dynamic range imagery and really make the screen disappear. But all the commenters who say that story trumps technology are right, of course.
It's a shame the movie and theater industry turned their back on ShowCam . He almost had them do it by putting a curved movie screen in every theater and show films as they should by instead they demolished all the big theaters and made muliplexs instead with even smaller screens to make more money . And thats what its about money and not giving the audience a experience of what film should look like .As a kid we used to ho to the local theater and it was one screen with 4 big rows of seats . Trumbull's ShowCam would had been fantastic to watch Bladeruner and the 70 mill. films . Im glad he still working on how films are streamed since we are in a age of buying our own home theater and watching it in out homes but still the true experience to watch a film on IMAX . Trumbull is the best in the business since he has a vision if how a film should look like .
1:23 "First good science-fiction movie" - - Trumbull, Andromeda Strain was the last good science fiction movie - - me 5:28 "Avatar was the highest grossing movie of all time", also the most expensive, at $400,000,000
I didn't realise that CGI has to deliberately create blur effects for every frame at 30fps, sounds like that would increase the render time a lot! I wonder what it looks like without the blur, less realistic I assume?
@@MrBrad898540 Bottom line as you said , people dont care . I have so many friends and family that I tried to get them to buy a bluray player since they watch stuff in DVD but falls on deaf ears the same of streaming. Most dont watch a film for the best experience but rather of necessity and again dont care . I stop wasting time on them but rather chat and exchange thoughts with those who do care .
Dan Reese The sad reality is that you’re right. I think the general consumer would rather watch a film on a mobile device or at home rather than spend money to watch a film at a theater. But what’s causing this distaste for the theater? I’m sure cost and convenience play a major role. I also believe that the theater experience is also tarnished by the misbehavior and general rudeness of the public. Pulling out smartphone during a theater viewing has become the norm. However, there’s a light at the end of this tunnel of moviegoer ambivalence. The evidence is that IMAX boxoffice sales are increasing. If people are willing to shell out more money for an enhanced theater experience, I’m willing to bet that there’s a market for this technology. But in order to gain more traction, it’s the responsibility of the theater owners to enforce good behavior in their theaters. Certain theaters chains like Alamo Drafthouse are popular because they take great effort to curb such bad behavior by kicking out talkers and phone users during their presentations. They also refuse to seat anyone after the movie starts. And it works!
@@txmoney People that chat during a film think tney are home watching TV . I wait a week before going and when I do I sit a few seat away but those people seem to aways sit behind you when tne film starts and you seem to lose the rhythm of the film . Most chains wont allow infants in certain films cuz the noise upsets them ..
Dan Reese Haha, so true. I find myself doing the same thing; waiting a week or two to avoid the crowds. There was a time when I actually enjoyed going to a movie with a large audience. I remember watching Jaws, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, ET, etc. on opening night felt the excitement and audience reaction. Everyone was well behaved and respectful. You couldn’t get that experience watching at home.
@@danpetitpas It's the hidden costs. The amount of light required for 120fps content is 5x that of 24fps. You need new lighting rigs, new bulbs, more energy, which generates more heat and now you need more cooling. Costs money. While there would be less blur rendering in CGI scenes, there will be 5x the amount of frames being generated so it will easily take 5 times as long to generate the frames. It's just the hidden costs that make this simply unattainable.
@@OniMirage Agreed. And in the end, I also think there is a psychological aspect to this. The more detail and information is being given to the audience, the least space is left for their own imagination. That's why 2D animation is still relevant today. The simplicity and limited info allows for interaction with the audience, from texture to movement.
@@HecmarJayam Exactly. Trumbull contributed brilliant ideas to some of my favorite films. I will always admire him for those achievements. But his insistence that movies must be presented at higher frame rates was rather pedantic and short-sighted. 24 FPS, with all its motion blur and strobing, has a mystique and a romance that is part of a century-plus tradition of cinematic imagery. It is a signal that we're watching a film -- not a soap opera, a sports event, or a reality TV show. I have watched some high-frame-rate movies in recent years from acclaimed directors like Peter Jackson and Ang Lee. The HFR added nothing to the experience -- in fact, I found it unpleasant and cheap-looking. The fact that 24 FPS leaves gaps in what we see is a feature, not a bug. Our own visual systems are full of gaps, due to the way our eyes are built -- much of what we see is actually a kind of simulation occurring in our brains. In fact, scientists have recently established that our picture of the world at any given moment is a mental composite of about the last 15 seconds of visual stimuli. So: We don't need to see everything on the screen in perfect clarity at every second for it to make a strong impression. We can only process so much visual input at a time... and often, less is more. The art of filmmaking isn't simply about showing us as much information as technically possible -- it's about selectively showing us what's most important. In fact, many great filmmakers leave much of the picture blurry or in shadow on purpose, to create a more aesthetic composition, heighten the drama, and direct our attention.
While I agree that the Hobbit looked to my eyes like a cheap BBC Drama when I saw it in HFR 3D... I guess most of that is basically me being trained to think of higher framerates as something only cheap TV productions use... And porn... I even remember finding a command line input for the first Counter Strike game back when that was new that would limit the engine to 24 fps, and immidiately it felt more "filmic". We should remember that the main reason we have 24 fps film as the standard in the first place was very pragmatic. Nothing about magic of storytelling or anything like that. It was simply the slowest framerate the engineers could manage while still getting intelligeble sound from sound on film formats. It made sense because the moneymen wanted the biggest profit margin. Nowadays younger generations grow up with video games rendering epic battlefields in 60-100 fps. They don't have to equate 60fps with shot-on-shitteo pornography. I still prefer 24. But silent movies did go the way of the dodo for a reason. People want something that wows them. And staccato panning shots is seen as a bad thing by a lot of viewers. Give HFR 3D time. Great films in the format will come.
When I saw the Hobbit in 48fps 3D, I was excited about how great it was going to look, but somehow it looked TOO real, all the action looked like real people on a stage in front of me and not actually in middle earth. Every time there was an action scene I was taken completely out of the moment. it just looked wrong. I was terribly disappointed. I then saw it again in standard 24fps and 2D and it was back to being an immersive cinematic experience. what I wanted to see was 48fps but NOT 3D. I think 3D was probably the problem, but there was no way to see it that way.
While I support all technological progress in all forms of imaging, high frame rate is a disaster to storytelling. It's great for nature and sports, but it's "like being there yourself" in all the wrong ways for movies. Gandalf becomes an actor in a suit. MiddleEarth becomes a New Zealand forest. Tattooine becomes Tunesia. The filter of magic goes away. High frame rate increases realism and removes the magic.
I agree to some extent yes. The blur, the flare, the grain, focus glitches... they all added to that dream-like feeling of peeping into a different universe... But of course kids will adapt to the new normal, and take new story-telling conventions in their stride as do all generations. We are just nostalgic for these first few movies we saw back then.
I saw his 2014 Magi short film at the Seattle Cinerama. They brought in a new (at the time) laser projector just for the event. Was by far the best 3D HFR experience I've ever seen. It's unfortunate this process hasn't been used by other directors.
Marc Parella - I think his "Project Brainstorm" and "The Andromeda Strain" were pretty good storylines. Did you write a better story? Judging from your comment, you did. Please tell it. I've always got time for a better story.
@@DieyoungDiefast I see this same tired cliche when it comes to games. Good graphics doesn't suddenly mean the gameplay is bad, why assume good presentation means the story most be bad?
But... but... the blur seen in 24 fps movies is what makes the movie magic :( Movies in 60 fps look so real, that they start to appear fake :( 48 fps Hobbit was unwatchable!
There is a major flaw in this system: Cinema-3D and Home-3D (if not with LCD-glasses) is displayed for both eyes at the same time. So this is only helping with LCD-shutterglasses. And I doubt that the actual HDMI-standard supports alternating frames? So the Bluray-mastering would need to add black frames in every second frame?
Incorrect, Cinema 3D uses a singe projector and a filter wheel (both RealD and Dolby). Only polarised 3D TVs don't alternate frames, and they're sadly rare.
Suspending disbelief is the way to feel immersed in a story, and just radio plays can do that to you, if there's real dramatic / directorial skills involved. High def 3D blah blah physical realism doesn't guarantee it in any way. Smoking a joint often enhances story immersion!
Trumbull came at that 60fps frame rate through scientific process but missed the non-scientific appeal of 24fps, which endures even now, in an era when any fps is possible at little expense. His emphasis on clinical detail in every frame is his Achilles (and Cameron's and Jackson's) Achilles heel. Removing motion blur follows an arbitrary perfectionist impulse akin to an aging woman's yen for Botox. All that said, it was very cool to see him remain the same youthful visionary he was in the 60's and 70's up to the digital era.
Sean J Eunson. Yeah. For a piece on technical excellence, a misspelled word in a title card only drives home the message that technical mastery doesn't mean anything if you can't write.
Peter Jackson released the first Hobbit film in both 24 fps and 48 fps...the 48 fps got horrible reviews...it made the film look like a cheap video as opposed to a movie.
I don't think you watched the video, particularly from 7:00. 120fps is significantly different from 48fps, and MAGI uses alternating left-right exposures for perfect temporal continuity.
I think it looked great, with the added clarity the uncanny valley of cgi was wider but so what its a movie! Why should filmmakers be scared of a challenge fo make it look better instead of using a crappy medium to hide rough edges
To be fair, The Hobbit is possibly the ugliest movie trilogy I've ever watched in my life, and I've seen a fair deal of both good and bad movies. The art direction on the CGI specifically was vomit inducing in its garishness, its cheap feel and its horrible, horrible design. The sets (apart from a few outdoor shots in NZ) were also mainly just painted plastic and all of them inside, so they only ever lit them with artificial lighting (and what a poor job they did). The costumes were fine as I recall, but the prosthetics of the dwarves, compounded with the useless storytelling, made them feel very fake for the most part. All of that is to say: I don't think the cameras or the framerate had much to do with The Hobbit being the visual dumpster fire that it was.
I think it's just the "I don't have time to do this properly, we'll do it in post - oh, post production also doesn't have the time? Whatever, people are used to garbage franchise movies these days, they'll defend it to their last breath anyway" effect. But yeah, it looks exactly like a shitty soap opera playing around with video filters and rubbing vaseline on the lens.
about the same as color, resolution, screen size, surround sound... its one of the components of motion pictures, and cinematographers have to understand it and use it properly.
After seeing this video my feeling is, so what? Making a film a more visual experience is not what matters. What matters is creating a movie that has an interesting and compelling story or narrative. If you can combine this with a strong visual that enhances this experience, great. But the reason so many awful movies exist today in American Cinema is because most of it is all about the visual. The movies people talk about most are those that create a compelling experience for the viewer. If you want to wow them for ten minutes with a carnival ride, put them in an amusement park, not a movie theater. Therefore, this video is a perfect example of technology over common sense, leaving us with a movie in the end that nobody cares about within ten minutes after seeing it. That is a real problem.
Neb6 , I do blame the effects industry because they have monopolized the industry to such an extent, that many of them will insist that movies wouldn't be movies without them. Douglas Trumbull himself has emphasized the visual is what makes movies exciting to him, going all the way back to his childhood. In many cases today, you can't even get a film off the ground unless visual effects and the firms that produce them, are contracted in advance. In fact, the visual is the emphasis in almost all the films coming out of Hollywood today. This myth of the visual is a big problem, and it has to change, otherwise Hollywood has no future.
Oh do fuck right off with this bullshit. I'm willing to bet you've never listened to a the raw recordings of any of the songs that you enjoy. Sure, the song might be good, but the immense work that goes into mixing and mastering that song for you, as well as the file format decades in the making, and the stereo you hear it on, is a huge part of the listening process. I guarantee you, you would favor some other song if your favorite song in the world was recorded into a toy microphone and played back through a cafeteria speaker. Making art is difficult. Making art is technical. Expanding on those technical limits is what brought you movies and recorded music in the first place. Your bullshit claim that a movie is all about a compelling narrative is the dumbest thing I've heard today, but belittling pioneers in a technical field because you only ever consume and have no idea what it takes to create is downright insidious.
You seem to have missed the point that the cinema hss to differentiate itself from the small screen. Why will anyone go to the theater if they can wait to watch it on their iPad?
Because technology isn't what makes cinema matter. Cinema matters because there is an emotional connection between the film and the audience. Pretty images and good photography should be the last thing any filmmaker cares about to make a film work. It doesn't matter whether you see it on a computer or a big screen. If the filmmaker has to rely on the visual to make his film work, he only has half a move, and sometimes even less than that. There are plenty of bad movies photographed well that exemplify this point.
You STILL don't get it. Emotional connection between (medium) and audience can happen on my Amazon fire that I just watched High Castle season 3 in. There will be no movie theaters, and no large budgets, for anything but low production value tv shows, if the Cinema (the theater) is not preserved. There is an element of demand and captialism that It is really fanciful to ignore. It also a bit naive to think that films like Blade Runner (either one) really have the same emotional effect without the large screen and the dolby. The immersion begets half as much or more of why the films work.
No amount of immersive high tech presentation makes any difference if the script is shite. If the script is really good then viewing it on a laptop can be just as engaging as some surroundsound dolby stereo imax digital 3D blah blah blah 'experience'. The same applies to sci fi effects... as long as they're moderately convincing, within an engaging story, then that's good enough.
And that job falls on someone else entirely. So much work goes into making films, that any stage of the production is can be worthy of attention and innovation even if other parts are lacking. If all you are is an end user, then sure it doesn't matter, but to those of us who are interested in the technology of media and pushing the envelope, this stuff is immensely interesting.
Yeah, what does Douglas Trumbull know, he only worked on several landmark films from movie history. Hell, most of the history of cinema involved large projection of the image in a dark room with stereo or surround sound, which is obviously all about immersion and experience. Your point of view is closed minded and very plainly uninformed.
I disagree too , Even a Marvel film is alot better to watch on a big screen if not when squeezed on a small screen you can see thru the effects or so small ypu cant enjoy it . People who just watch a film such as Bladerunner 2049 and not look at the cinematography or how a film angles are shot , the costumes, props or even how a actors hair is cut in a period piece . Films are art and watching a 70 mill film on the right screen makes a difference than watching it on TV with pan and scan.
He keeps claiming the "soap opera" effect is a problem of the framerate being lower than the display's framerate. I always thought it was because of reduced motion blur (regardless of whether it was interpolated footage or native). Which is why I always though Soap Opera's and news programs look a lot closer to what my eye sees than a motion picture. Movies shot at 24 fps have a certain look because of the motion blur. I would have to see true 60+ fps displayed at the proper framerate before I could tell it was "better". Also when they finally do make the move, it could be similar to how most color movies don't look as "good" as techniclolor. Technicolor doesn't look as "real" as modern color, however I still prefer it because it's similar to a painting. It's richer and more velvety smooth somehow. I don't know, if I would prefer having my movies look like real life or not. Then the whole issue of 3D -- there's truth in the fact that it's pretty dark. My eyesight isn't real good in the dark to begin with. 3D only wows for a period of time until I get adjusted. Avatar in 3D at first was interesting, but because of the shaky cam, it just made me a bit tired, and made some people I know sick to their stomach. I guess I have to see it to believe it.
Motion blur is an aesthetic choice. Having better technology does _not_ rob film makers of that choice. But 3D _sucks_ : dark, head ache, crosstalk, and limits the cinematographer greatly. 3D _almost_ _killed_ _cinema_ before COVID did, because people got a better picture at home.
"tHe OnLy thInG tHAt MaTteRS Is tHe StOrY!" Oh so I guess the thousands of people working on a movie that aren't the script writer are just there for shits and giggles?
Productions shot with frame rates higher than 24 look like garbage to me. I've never looked at a film and thought, "Wow. That sure would look better with more frames." The opposite has always been the case. 60 fps doesn't look more "natural." It looks awful. I can't imagine 120.
I love Trumbull, he's a genius of special effects but honestly, the hobbit in 48fps looked really horrible, like a tv show shot in an amusement park. I really don't understand what they're talking about, who gives a shit about motion blur? Above 24/25fps it simply looks like television always looked, which means like crap...
As I laid out in another comment, The Hobbit looked like hot garbage for all sorts of reasons, but I doubt the frame rate was the culprit. I only ever saw those movies in 24fps, and they were the ugliest movies I've ever seen.
Except they looked the same in 24fps, and the movie wasn't recorded nor released in 60fps, but rather 48fps. The video even touches on this, and why it's drastically different from 60fps.
my error, i meant 48fps. But I assure you that watching it on an Imax screen was a pain for my eyes (and i'm not talking about the film itself, just the perception of it)
On further reflection, that does ring somewhat true to me. Even visually superior movies have a tendency to lag and jitter across a cinema screen for me, which they never do on my laptop. Because of this, the only movies I've seen in cinemas recently were Fantastic Beasts, Rogue One, Star Wars VIII (in a great old school mega cinema with IMAX and ATMOS), and Blade Runner 2049 (take a guess which one I chose) and every single one of them had noticeable visual lag to my eyes. Rewatched Blade Runner recently on my laptop, and I had no such issues. This is a problem for me, because I generally take my art and entertainment very seriously, and especially because the sound aspect of cinema intrigues me greatly. I just don't wanna spend what translates to $20 on a cinema trip when the picture quality is worse and the industry that I'm paying is downright terrible. Anyway, here's hoping that 60fps might fix that, as I have yet to see a 24fps or 48fps movie - even in IMAX - that didn't have more visual lag than it does on my laptop or TV. If they fix that and stop making these god awful franchise movies, I might just start coming back to cinemas.
You can never get this past the usual stuffy old film critics cuz all they want is 24 frames and simulated film grain so it looks like the ‘classic’ cinema they deify, they freak tf out if it has higher frames or no grain. Same as they never enjoy spectacle/immersion/action movies or 3D, they watch movies as if they’re reading a book on classic cinematography, so anything new, nope, no good.
Yeah, weird eh? It actually confused me because I couldn't believe it was a spelling error and tried to give meaning to the word 'puting' - odd mistake in what looks like a corporate video
I had a recent opportunity to see Mr. Trumbull's method and he has solved the problems you experienced in the "Hobbit" and his concepts represent a major step forward for the cinema experience. You won't be disappointed!
The fundamental problem with high framerate and 3D combined is that it causes upwards of 40% of audiences to get sick. The only way to fix this is to exert inertia upon audiences in order to fix this infighting of the eyes, inner ear and the brain's interpretation of these sensory informations
It is probably why simultaneous contrasted colors are used to reinforce backgrounds and foregrounds while keeping parallax discomfort at a minimum. Avatar uses red and green quite often to this effect.
The problem with current 3D technology is it forces the viewer’s eyes and brain to continually adjust their divergence whilst simultaneously maintaining a fixed focal distance to the screen. This is, to say the least, unnatural and causes considerable physical and mental discomfort to a significant proportion of the audience. The problem with high frame rates is it makes everything look like cheap video. After a century of 24fps being ingrained in the public psyche as the de facto medium for high quality production and narrative storytelling, combined with the slightly dream-like state it elicits in the mind of the viewer, it’s not going to go away anytime soon. Proponents of high frame rates face a considerable battle against public perception of it as cheap soap opera video.
Well, Avatar also only had 4-5 "in the face" scenes, too. I hate that storylines are written for IN THE FACE-3D and not just using 3D to enhance the experience. I liked the depth-scenes, eg. the wakeupscene in the spaceship.
Says 120fps captures 100%, then shows a frame with blurry hand. Says VFX rendering is easier without blur -- not sure he understands what he's saying there. VFX adds motion blur, and each frame needed to render is extremely significant.
i really dont like CGI in 95% of the cases, i even prefer the old real models from the old star trek movies than the new CGI stuff, worst thing for me, is this modern lensflare stuff from JJ ...... or the alien covenand CGI, it just sucks so hard, the old real alien is fucking scaty and epic ..... and sry for bad english...
Am I the only one who thinks 2001 a space odyssey is boring as shit? I'm sure the effects were incredible for the time... I mean they still hold up pretty well but Jesus Christ is that movie slow, pretentious, and mind numbing.